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Media: Pride

2018 »

Do you discourage your kid from being prideful? Research shows that might not be the way to go.

...Parents know that grit and inner motivation are building blocks to success, yet they sometimes struggle with how to instill these qualities in their children. Recent research finds they have a surprising — and often overlooked — key ingredient: pride....

So-called “power posing” could backfire if you’re seeking a donation. New research in Evolution and Human Behavior indicates that expansive postural displays — like standing up straight with your shoulders pushed back — can dissuade charitable giving.

“We have studied nonverbal displays of pride and high rank in my lab for some time now (for example, see here, here, and here) and this is a topic covered heavily in my book, Pride: The Secret of Success,” said study author Jessica L. Tracy, a psychology professor at the University of British Columbia....

Pride is the downfall of many a tragic hero. Mr Darcy has to let his go before he can earn Elizabeth Bennet’s love. Dante listed it as one of the seven deadly sins. And as the famous (and oft-misquoted) verse from Proverbs cautions us, it “goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall”.

There’s no question about it: we’re consistently told that pride makes us obnoxious at best and doomed at worst.

But pride may not entirely deserve this reputation as a destructive force. There’s new evidence that this emotion has an evolutionary function, and that it plays an important role in the way that we interact with the world....